it's almost over...

alright ladies and gents, this very well may be the last post until june 13... the day i go hooooooome! the only new and exciting thing that has happened recently is, well you know....sistar and mommy were here!! this was sarah's first time to europe EVER and mama's first time to spain. they got here at the perfect time, just as feria was winding down, and just as the hot weather was beginning. we managed to do a lot together, but mostly it was just nice to have a little piece of home here with me. 

i took them to meet loli, my señora. she made an AWESOME lunch for us, it was the cutest thing of all time. i had to translate and eat...twas exhausting. it was weird speaking english in front of loli...but i'm glad she got to see that i can in fact be an articulate human being, not a total idiot struggling to speak spanish. 

i made sure they did all of the typical sevilla tourist stuff: the cathedral (we went to a mass!), the reales alcázares (a huge fortress), bodyworlds (sarah and i both pissed our pants over this), and the baños arabes (a spa/bath house). we also went to a couple of famous sevilla bars/restaurants including a bar with a badass flamenco show, and i even took sarah out with my friends to play beer pong at our favorite tuesday night bar (we lost). we took day trips to granada and málaga....both weren't quiiiiite what we expected. granada was an absolute fiasco with transportation...but at the end of the day, we got there and back safe and sound and managed to see nearly all of the alhambra (another giant fortress... the most visited place in spain). málaga, as it turns out, has the worst beach in southern spain, but as it is also the birth place of picasso, so there was a kick ass picasso museum there. the highlight of that trip was eating lunch on a small street with a violin player, who was GREAT, playing nearby. 

our last day was spent in madrid, where we saw picasso's great 'guernica' as well as the rest of the museo reina sofia (my favorite museum...in the world! dude, i can actually say that!). i was also finally able to see the parque del buen retiro (kicks central park's ass) for the first time in four trips to madrid. time out: ABSURD, i've been to madrid four separate times.  we managed to negotiate the stress that comes along with spending 10 straight days with each other, and i can safely say it was absolutely fabulous having them here....shout out to papa and rose for making sarah's trip possible! 

but all good things must come to an end....mama and sistar are back in michigan, and i only have one month (exactly from yesterday) here. it's really hard to believe i've spent over 4 months here. it's starting to freak me out that the people i see every day here are about to be, well...gone! the next month is going to be less than fun: three final exams, one project, two papers to write. turns out, i actually have some work to do here. 

so friends, i'll top things off with one final post when i'm on my way home. i can't wait to see everyone when i come home!!

and some pictures...not in chronological order...blogger is the bane of my existence. 

there were these cute little statuey things all throughout the park in madrid. 

parque del buen retiro...only took me 6 years and 4 trips to madrid to get there...

in malaga, dipping our feet into the mediterranean!

pastries from "la campana." i'll mostly likely need a few bypass surgeries when i get home. 

for a fancy night out, we ate here. it was friggen awesome. mom and i got "cola del toro" or bull's tail. we ate bull meat off of a vertebrae. and liked it. 

the apartment we stayed in was just around the corner, in the santa cruz barrio (the old jewish quarter). needless to say, a little more picturesque than the 'burb that i live in. 

surviving in granada

i kid you not, the tour guide told us that this was the room in which  the sultan hung out with his concubines (in the alhambra, granada).

me and mommy next to the sevilla cathedral. we lived around the corner from this as well. 

feria

at the end of april each year, sevilla turns in to one big giant party. everyone gathers in los remedios (a barrio on the other side of the river of my barrio) where rows upon rows of tents or "casetas" are set up for non-stop partying. if you´re lucky, you get invited to a private caseta, which nearly all of the casetas are, or you brave the crowded, dirty public casetas. i had the pleasure of experiencing both. inside each caseta is of course, a bar, and an area for dancing where women dressed in flamenco dresses dance the traditional "sevillana" dance. dresses cost about 300 €, so i wasn´t able to acquire one. a few of my friends borrowed or bought dresses on sale, and they looked amazing. i initally thought i would look like a total tool wearing one if i had worn one, but it turns out you stand out more at feria if you DON´T wear a flamenco dress. it is at least absolutely obligatory to dress to impress when going to the feria. inside the caseta i enjoyed rebujito with my friends, a drink made from white wine and sprite....the "other" sangria i´d like to think. when mama and sister arrived on the 1st, i was able to take them to feria for one night. needless to say, it was quite the culture shock. i´m really glad they got to see such a typical sevilla event during their visit! some photos of the madness:

the private caseta we were able to party in....i took the photo on a different night, when there wasn´t as much of a crazy partaaay.

some dancing sevillanas in the typical flamenco garb.

the entry way to feria. they construct a new one every year and this year, it was smaller than usual (???)
we all know who these people are!

semana santa (which was a thousand years ago, i know) and the canaaaaaries!

i do realize i've been a bit delinquent on my blog posts. things are getting crazy here. firstly, momma and siiiiistar are currently here!! i've been dragging them around everywhere with me, and tomorrow we'll be in for a little r&r as we're going to the baños arabes for a little spa treatment. 

but more on them later. after my colossal euro trip, we got back to sevilla during semana santa (holy week). every year, the city is transformed into a giant religious frenzy, filled with pasos. pasos are...floats, i guess you could say...really old religious floats. i'm talking renaissance old. men carry them throughout the city for a whole day at a time, so they can be viewed at different points of the city all day. this goes on for the whole week leading up to easter. let's not forget that with each paso is a huge procession of scary hooded men, or penitents. thankfully, not kkk members. 

two weeks later, my trip to gran canaria. i went with 7 other girls from the program, including my roommate, kate. this was actually the first typical 'spring break trip' i've ever gone on. most of my spring breaks have been with family or at home. we stayed in playa del ingles, apparently the gay capital of europe. we didn't get a taste of this until our last night when we ate dinner in the yumbo center, which was filled with plenty of drag queens and cabaret shows. our first day was spent on the beach, and we were accosted by several men trying to sell us tickets to bar crawls and other tourist traps. we caved in and bought tickets to two bar crawls and a boat excursion. as usual, we were not given exaaaaactly what we were promised, but they were all fun. my favorite part had to be our near death banana boat ride on the boat and the (several) free bottles of champagne we won during our bar crawls. last two days on the island were spent sunning at the pool at our apartment complex - it got soooo windy that the beach was no longer enjoyable! we came back to sevilla, freshly tanned and even a little burned, and geared up for feria. more on that later....

prague pictures!

the john lennon wall. this is just a fraction of this friggen sweet piece of collective artwork. 

st. vitus' cathedral...part of the prague castle, which happens to be europe's oldest medieval castles!

birthday in the family birthplace.

vltava river and the charles bridge

BOHEMIA BAGEL!!

rome pictures!

inside the vatican...sorry folks, no pictures of the sistene chapel :(

outside the vatican...me, kate and adrienne...my travel buddies!

the roman forum

10 years later, it still looks the same!

this time, i made sure to drop another coin in the trevi fountain to ensure another visit to rome! here with kate, peter, adrienne and katy (and gelato!)

venice pictures!

san marco square! complete with pigeons!

me and kate on the rialto bridge....the gran canal behind us

i thought this building was perty, so i snapped a picture with it. 
ahh, the first gondola sighting. after the rain finally stopped, they came out to play. 
the weather was poopy, but we still had fun. 

euro trip!

ahhh, the great euro trip has happened: 8 days, 4 cities, 8 planes. we arrived back in sevilla on thursday and needless to say, i'm a little tired. shall i begin?? be prepared, there's a lot. 

VENICE

so, kate and i  woke up at 4:30 am to catch our 8 am flight out of sevilla. we made one stop in barcelona, and arrived in venice at about noon. we were welcomed by a healthy amount of rain. this wasn't the only obstacle. we had to find a way to get from the bus station on the main island to our hotel on lido, which is another little island of venice. after going to a few information desks, we find that our best option is to buy a boat ticket for 24 hours at a mere 18 euro. (and the expenses begin to pile up...) the public (boat) transportation is kind of a boat version of a metro. a bunch of different lines, but on water. after a mere hour boat ride to lido, we check in, the rain stops, and we begin to explore. because we only had one day there, we just chose to walk around mostly. you couldn't get lost in venice if you tried...you always end up back at the gran canal. we visited san marco square, visited the basilica, ate pizza, then explored some more. there were gondolas everywhere once the rained stopped, but at 80 euro a pop, we had to pass. we did have one man yell at us "hey spice girls, want a gondola ride??" interesting....because of the whole wake up early, one hour boat ride thing that we had to do all over again the next day, we at an early dinner (pasta, of course) and called it a night early. the next day, we woke up at 3:45 am (horrifying), hopped on the boat, took a bus to the airport and got on our 8 am flight to rome. 

ROME

immediately after getting off the plane friday morning, we took a bus to the central termini station, walked 10 minutes to our hostel, dropped off our stuff and booked it to the vatican. there we met up with our friend adrienne who made the rest of the trip with us. basically everything we did in rome i've done before, but it was a lot nicer to do it 10 years later as an adult. i think i appreciated things a lot more. the vatican was of course, gorgeous, as was the sistene chapel. although, i do remember it being a great deal larger last time. probably because i was a wee 12 year old. we then went immediately to st. peter's basilica, rubbed the statues foot, explored the surroundings of the vatican a little more, and then stopped in a cafe for more pizza and gelato. by now we were in contact with two other students from our program that were staying in our hostel and decided after a quick walk to the river, we'd meet them at the hostel and check out the spanish steps. the river proved to be a little complicated...we got slightly lost on the grounds of a castle nearby, and it took us roughly twenty minutes to find our way across its moat. but then we jumped on a bus and were back at the hostel in no time. there we met up with katy and peter. after catching up quickly, we headed off to the spanish steps. peter stayed behind because he was still finishing a paper due that day (whoops!). we took the metro to the center of the city, saw/climbed the steps and even made our way to the trevi fountain and had more gelato. we found a cute little restaurant for dinner, ate more pizza, took our leftovers to stash in the hostel, and then relaxed in the hostel drinking wine and watching a movie. we all were a little too beat to brave the roman bars that night

saturday, kate, adrienne and i got up early to see the colosseum, roman forum, and....all of those other ruins in the same area. this time i actually made it into the colosseum (for a mere 12 euro). the weather was absolutely gorgeous. we totally lucked out. after exploring the ruins for a couple of hours, we met back up with katy and peter for lunch (more pizza) and then basically wandered around for a good 3 or 4 hours. we saw the pantheon, the piazza del popolo, the eternal flames at altare della patria, ducked into a church that was having mass, drank cappuccino, shopped...you name it. i'm still amazed by all we were able to squeeze in two days. we basically saw all of rome. hungry and needing rest, we went back to the hostel to eat our pizza. unfortunately, some unfriendly vultures had eaten it. poopfaces. i'm still angry, it was such good pizza! we made do with what the vultures left, had a couple of drinks and headed out to a bar. before getting there, we stopped at the trevi fountain one more time to throw coins in (and ensure our return to rome), and ate even more gelato. we were planning on walking to campo di fiori, where the best bars are apparently, but we got lazy and stopped in at 'trinity college,' another recommended bar that was closer. it was alright, besides the astronomical 6 euro we payed for our beers...we then walked allllll the way back to our hostel (at least an hour i think!) and got in a few hours sleep before our plane to prague the next morning. 

PRAGUE

bright and early sunday morning, we left katy and peter in rome and headed off to prague with one stop in milan. at this point, we started to get a wee bit tired. i've never slept so much on planes...usually it's impossible for me, but in this state of exhaustion, it was easy. we arrived in prague in the early evening, and took a cab from the airport to the hostel. this was easily the nicest hostel we stayed in. it was more like an apartment that let out rooms. huge kitchen, huge room, huge bathroom, and free internet. beautiful. that night, we walked around wenceslas square a little bit, and realized how impossible it is to make anything out of any czech word. italian is close to spanish, but czech is impossible to read or pronounce. we made up our own little words for what we thought street names sounded like...elaborate czech street names became "pacman," "jambalaya," and my personal favorite, "slap cat." after wandering a bit, we arrived at the beer factory, a bar/restaurant with 15 tables, all equipped with their own tap. the food was decent, albeit nothing like italy, but we poured our own beer, which was fun. the music was loud, and about 30 minutes after being there, two very large groups of young tourists piled in and started dancing. it was great people watching to say the least. we turned in early again so we could get up the next day and cram all of our sightseeing in. 

monday. the birthday. started off with a bang and BOHEMIA BAGEL. my first bagel in months, and it was bohemian. i was happy as a clam. we then visited st. nicholas' church (old) and the prague castle (even older).  we then made it to old town square for some good old fashioned czech wieners. (bratwurst). we also tried some hot wine, and it was GOOD. i now have a bohemian contribution of my own for uncle ed's christmas dinner. should go good with the kolaches. there was some easter fair going on as well, so we enjoyed that. there was a stage with children singing...a little creepy because it was in czech, but cute still. we then made it back to the hostel, got pretty and went out for a nice birthday dinner. food in prague is pretty cheap if you know where to go....we found a very nice place called 'cafe savoy,' each had basically a three course dinner with drinks, and i think it came out to roughly 10 euro a person. nice. except in czech crowns. (most confusing currency ever). i had a 'traditional czech meal' of ham, horseradish, mustard and gherkins. i enjoyed. i looooove me some horseradish. adrienne had a friend she wanted to see, so she and kate went out, and i got some beauty sleep. i need it in my old age now. 

AMSTERDAM

ah, the last city. we got up early, again, and took a cab to the airport. we had a loooong day ahead of us with a 6 hour layover in london gatwick. we pondered venturing out into the city, but london has weird passport control issues, so we figured when all was said and done, we'd have roughly an hour at most to explore. not worth it. so we sat in the airport...read...ate....i purchased myself a birthday present (new bag, very happy about it). and finally we were on the plane to amsterdam. we got there around 7 pm, took a train into the city and walked to the hostel. this city is by far the most different city i've ever been to. if you've seen it, you know what i'm talking about. bikes have their own traffic lanes, you can walk down the red-light district and pick out a prostitute, and coffee shops are NOT a place to buy coffee. it was pretty rainy the next day, but luckily most of our activities (van gogh museum, heineken experience) were all indoors. both were quite expensive to get into, but at least we all got a little tipsy from the 'free' beer that we got in the heineken experience. my other favorite moment had to be when we were walking through the red light district, which was conveniently around the corner from our hostel, and one of the ladies standing on the street sprayed us with a water gun. the women of the night even have senses of humor! after a day of major sensory overload, we headed back to our hostel and enjoyed the xbox in our room. (seriously, all rooms had an xbox. and games. nice). 

the next morning, we dragged our tired bodies back onto the train, and onto our last flight. we were all pretty happy to be going home...even if it involved a flight with VERY annoying toddlers with sticky apple eating fingers and seat kicking feet. kate and i came home, were warmly greeted by loli and dos besos, ate lunch, and passed out for 5 hours. and don't worry your pretty little head. the pictures are coming next.